Chapter 28: Christmas Part 2

The trip home was hilarious as there was a contest between Margaret and her mom to see who could cut the worst garlic bread farts. The two of them just wouldn’t stop and what started off as eye-watering laughter soon turned into an eye-watering, burning sensation!

“Sweetie, you might need to pull over so we can air out the van before we get home.” Erin said as she ripped another one.

Margaret laughed and tooted and laughed and tooted, etc. Finally, I had to pull over to let Lynn and Blossom open the side and back doors of the van. The girls were making bad faces and Erin and Margaret wouldn’t stop farting.

“Paul! Please don’t stop! I think we need to get to the bathroom fast!” Erin pleaded.

“Ok, but you two need to sit down hard or something.”

The doors were closed, and I took off for the Savannah. A soon as I stopped, Erin got Margaret out of her car seat and carried her into the house. Penelope and Paula were laughing at their mother and sister until they realized that they had laughed so hard that THEY had to go to the bathroom too. Too much iced tea, I think.

Lynn, Blossom and I got Genevieve and Erin Lynn into the house to find a laughing Bill and Gwen.

“Good lord, what did you feed those two? They just ran up the stairs farting with each step!”

“Mom, it was the garlic bread.”

“Dear, garlic bread does not account for the noises and smells coming out of those two! Are the rest of you ok?”

“My eyes are burning a little.” Erin Lynn said.

I looked at my mother-in-law and shook my head.

“Paul O’Dell don’t ever let those two eat that stuff when we are here. That was the worst.”

“Oh no, you weren’t on the trip where Erin had her first White Castles. That was the worst!”

“What is White Castle?” Gwen asked.

“It is a fast food burger joint, the home of the original sliders. We went to one outside of St. Louis.”

“Paul wants us to go back there when we go to see his daughter and her family in St. Louis.” Blossom added.

“That poor bus will never be the same.” Gwen said.

We laughed and set up the Scrabble game while Bill and Gwen got dressed before leaving for their house though I noticed that Bill seemed to be a little out of breath.

The morning of Dec 23rd Jimmy showed up at the front gate with a big truck and a big thing that dug holes for the trees. I let him in, and he checked his drawings against the description I gave him of the driveway.

“Mr. O’Dell, how long do you intend to live here?”

“Jimmy, I think that this is the last house that my wives and I will ever live in.”

“Then you will be planting a lot of trees. I came up with this diagram.”

He showed me the original idea we had, but then he showed me one that had the trees staggered in five-foot centers. So, the pattern would be a zig-zag instead of a straight line. It would allow us to plant twice as many trees as we originally planned.

“I like it, Jimmy. Go for it. Unless you need me, we are going to take the family over to the park and then to dinner. Some other guys are coming to do some work I’ve set up as a surprise for my family, but you should be out of each other’s ways.”

“Ok.” And with that Jimmy had his crew begin plotting out the spots to dig.

We got the entire Herd loaded into the van and took off for the park. It was a cool crisp day. The high temp of the day was going to be in the mid-40’s. My warmly dressed family unloaded, and the girls headed for the swings and the moms and babies for the picnic tables. There were a couple more families in the park and we quickly struck up conversations with them.

The moms were all showing now, and the talk quickly turned to due dates and boys or girls and so on. I walked away to the swings before the inevitable questions about my magic bullets. I pushed the girls on the swings and goofed with them. Occasionally I would look over at the moms and catch them looking at me as they talked to the other moms.

I wondered what they were talking about. Women. I went back to my girls on the swings and was having a wonderful time when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to be kissed passionately by my first wife.

“Hi Lover!”

“Hi yourself. Are you and the other’s done bragging about me to the neighbor moms?”

“We never brag, Paul! It’s all fact!” Lynn smiled and kissed me again. “We were talking about Christmas and what the various families were doing. We told them about the live trees because they drove by the house when Jimmy was doing the work and saw all the trees on the big truck out front. He must have needed more equipment because one of the women said that it looked like a major construction site.”

I tried to not show my concern that one of the neighbors had said something about my surprise family present, but Lynn just kept going.

“It is about time to head out to the restaurant and get into the private room so we can feed the babies. Are you done swinging?”

“Yup! I’ll gather the girls and meet you at the van.” I kissed her again. “Lynn?”

“Yes?”

“Forever.”

“Forever, my Lover.” She turned to walk back to the other wives with a bit of a bounce in her step.

I turned and called the girls together. They all came running over from the swings and lined up. That was the routine after swings. I got a hug and kiss from each and then we marched off to the van. The moms had the babies belted in place and as the girls came they each got into their car seat and were also belted in. It was always amazing and a concern for me. Did the people watching think that we were running a military camp? Would someone think they should call DFS because our kids seemed so regimented?

That reminded me that I needed to call Ms. Margaret Williams at DFS about some things. She was on our side when it hit the fan after Halloween, but I needed to keep her there and she wasn’t aware of some of our family’s habits. I was brought back to the present by a loving pat on the butt from Blossom.

“Hey, Terry, wake up.”

“What? Oh! Sorry Baby.”

“We’re all packed up and ready when you are.”

“Thanks.” I kissed her and got in the van to find Erin sitting in the front passenger seat.

“Hi, Sweetie!”

“Hi. I thought I would sit in the front and let you watch my tits bounce around and then laugh with you when you walked into the restaurant trying to hide your boner.”

“My Erin, what a wonderful, loving woman you are.”

“Thank you Sweetie! I love you too.” She leaned over and kissed me before I started the van.

“Everyone got their seat belts on?”

A chorus of yes’s rang out and I took off for the Red Lobster. When I drove into the parking lot, the closest parking space was quite a distance from the door, so I pulled up to the entrance and helped the moms unload the kids.

“I’ll be in as soon as I get parked, Lynn.”

“Ok, Lover. See you inside.”

I drove to the far end of the lot and slowly walked back to the restaurant, hoping that everything at the house had gone as planned. I walked in the front door and the greeter asked me how many in my party.

“I’m with that big crazy group that just came in. I had to park the van.” I explained.

The young lady gave me a not so warm look and pointed me to the party room. When I walked in everyone was seated and waiting for me. I sat at the head of the table, because the last time I tried to not do that I was castigated by both moms and daughters.

“Was there a problem when you came in?” I asked.

“Not really. They were not expecting so many children.” Lynn said.

Just them a server came in and scanned the group. He walked over to Lynn.

“Ma’am, is everyone here?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, what can I get everyone to drink?”

“We will all have unsweetened iced tea and to save you some running around, if you give us pitchers you won’t have to keep refilling glasses.”

“Ok ... um ... that’s good.”

I called the young lady over to me.

“Miss, is there a problem? So far the people I have met haven’t been very friendly. If we are a problem, we can go elsewhere.”

“No ... it’s just that we had a group in earlier that had a lot of kids and they really made a mess of the place and were rather rude to the servers.”

“Well then, I suggest that you, what is your name?”

“Deanna.”

“You, Deanna, are going to have a very nice evening. Except for me. Usually I’m the only one to get rude and obnoxious.”

“That’s true, he is.” Blossom said from the far side of the table. Everyone at the table laughed and I think that eased some of the young ladies’ concerns.

She left and when she returned instead of finding children running around and using the butter to finger paint on the windows (yes, I asked during dinner) everyone was seated and talking. The three moms were nursing six of the babies and they each had a small towel covering themselves.

The moms ordered kids’ meals with shrimp and fish for the girls, and we ordered the pine-board broiled salmon for the adults. We ate and talked about Christmas and Santa and the girls wondered if Santa would enjoy the living trees. They made plans to make cookies to leave for Santa and each time the servers came in they were amazed at what they found.

“Daddy? What is lobster?” Margaret asked.

“Lobster? Those are the things in the big tank at the entrance.”

“Are they a fish?”

“No, dear. They are crustaceans. They have a very hard shell and those pincers are what they use to eat and protect themselves.”

“Daddy, are they going to be killed?” Paula asked.

“Only if people want to eat them.” I said.

“Paula, that is the way life works. God made animals to feed other animals. It is the way it is supposed to be. Right Daddy?” Erin tried to relax her daughter.

“Yes dear. Paula remember that big spider web in the back yard?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember that it had so many bugs in it?”

“Yes.”

“Those bugs were eaten by the spider, so the spider could live and have baby spiders. A bird ate the spider so the bird could live and have baby birds. That is the way life works.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes, Paula.”

“What does lobster taste like?”

“Well, my dear, it tastes like lobster. Would you like to taste some?”

Paula Erin sat and thought about it for a bit before looking around the table.

“Penelope, if I get some lobster will you share it with me?”

“Yes.” Penelope answered in support of her twin.

When the server returned, I asked to speak to her.

“My girls are curious about lobster and would like to know what it tastes like. How long would it take to make up one lobster?”